TCP_NODELAY in Cygwin port

[Brian Genisio]

Hello SSH developers,

I am sorry if this is not really a bug, and I am missing something, but I am running into an issue with port forwarding in SSH.  I am using 3.4p1 of SSH on both sides.

I am running the ssh daemon on a Slackware Linux 8.0 machine, and the ssh client is running in Cywgin version 1.3.13.  The ssh client is creating about 7 port forwards in a mix of local and remote forwarding 
types.  Everything with this setup works great.

I have an application that runs on the linux side that port forwards to the Cygwin side, and sends a small control packet (4-8 bytes) at a rate of 30 times per second to an application on the Cygwin side.  Because 
of this, the control application uses TCP_NODELAY in order to send it out as soon as it can.

If I do not use SSH port forwarding, the control packets are sent at a steady rate.  If I use the SSH port forwarding, the data is buffered, and sent in bursts.  With this, the packets build up, so nothing is sent for 6 
to 10 frames, and then all are sent at once.  This makes for jerky control.

I have looked into the OpenSSH release notes, and noticed that you added TCP_NODELAY on your endpoints for TCP port forwarding, though it does not seem like it is working properly.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to tell weather the burst is happening between the sshd and the ssh, or the ssh and the application.  As I mentioned, if my control program connects directly to the application, 
no buffering is used.

Do you have any idea to why this is happening?  Is there something wrong with the port forwarding implementation of SSH and TCP_NODELAY in Cygwin possibly?  I ran both sides in debug mode, and it stated 
that TCP_NODELAY was indeed set.  

I'm perplexed.

Thanks for your time,
Brian Genisio